25 Best Blockbuster Movies of All Time, Ranked

You know a blockbuster movie when you see one, and sometimes, you know one without even seeing it. If a big-budget movie gets solid critical reviews and captures the public consciousness, especially if it’s around summer, then there’s a good chance it can count itself as a successful blockbuster. It’s not a genre necessarily, because critical and commercial success is needed, to some extent, for a movie to be a true blockbuster.

The following movies are all definable as blockbusters to some extent, but are assessed here more by their quality – and just how much escapist value they offer – than how profitable they were (though all were, at the very least, financially successful in one way or another). These are easily approachable films that all revel in being big, bombastic, and crowd-pleasing, and are ranked below, starting with the great and ending with the untouchable.

25 ‘Avatar’ (2009)

Director: James Cameron

As the highest-grossing movie of the 2000s, you do have to give credit to Avatar, even begrudgingly, if you happen to fall into the camp of people who weren’t thrilled by it. It’s one of numerous James Cameron films that satisfy the conditions of a blockbuster in every sense of the term, but, as some soon-to-be-mentioned titles will show, it’s not quite the director’s very best big movie.

Avatar takes some familiar sci-fi tropes in its story of nature vs. technology on an alien moon, following one man whose life is changed when he comes to appreciate a new way of life, fighting for an alien race humanity had previously mistreated. It’s perhaps by-the-numbers narratively, but the emotional beats still hit and the action thrills, all the while Avatar is undeniably gorgeous to look at (especially in its famed 3D format).

24 ‘Face/Off’ (1997)

Director: John Woo

Standing out against the numerous blockbusters that have family-friendly (or at least teen-friendly) ratings, Face/Off is much gnarlier, with bloody violence and fairly gleeful profanity throughout. Matching the gonzo content is one of the wildest premises ever tackled within a big-budget Hollywood film, as the conflict here is between John Travolta and Nicolas Cage’s characters; two rival men on opposite sides of the law who swap faces and, thereby, lifestyles.

The movie saw John Woo bringing his Heroic Bloodshed sensibilities to Hollywood with grace and style, the budget being there to match the sorts of wild ideas found within Face/Off’s bizarre (yet gripping) screenplay. It’s a high-concept blockbuster that couldn’t go much higher conceptually, but the whole thing makes it work surprisingly well, and it’s an inevitable must-watch for fans of over-the-top 1990s action.

23 ‘Titanic’ (1997)

Director: James Cameron

While it didn’t travel off Earth in the same way Avatar did, Titanic was a similarly impressive achievement by James Cameron, and just as technically dazzling as his 2009 film. Titanic was a bit more of a traditional epic, taking place around a real-life historical tragedy but focusing on the doomed romance between two fictional people wrapped up in the central disaster.

Titanic is not at all shy about trying to appeal to as many people as possible, with it indulging in sweeping romance alongside delivering thrills and spectacle, and it balances being a romance film with a disaster movie surprisingly well. It’s also an understatement to call the film a monumental hit at the box office, so its significance as a historically important blockbuster is undeniable.

22 ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ (2022)

Director: Joseph Kosinski

The original Top Gun has its moments, and is understandably nostalgic for some, but it’s definitely flawed as a movie in ways that its sequel, 2022’s Top Gun: Maverick, didn’t fall victim to. Overall, this is probably one of the most noteworthy improvements from an original movie to its sequel in recent years, or maybe even of all time.

The story in Top Gun: Maverick is simple, following the planning and training involved in pulling off a daring mission, with said mission being the focus of the film’s dynamite and action-packed final act. As a blockbuster, it would’ve been a monumental success in any decade, but its box office run was extra significant in 2022, as Top Gun: Maverick was one of the first truly huge post-COVID-19 blockbusters (perhaps only beaten to the punch by the also successful Spider-Man: No Way Home, which came out in late 2021).

21 ‘Pacific Rim’ (2013)

Director: Guillermo del Toro

Compared to most of the other already mentioned and soon-to-be-mentioned blockbusters, Pacific Rim wasn’t a monumental box office hit, at least in the U.S., instead proving successful more thanks to the international box office. While it might not have busted as many blocks in the traditional sense, it is nonetheless Capital-E entertainment: big, broad, kind of silly, unabashedly sincere, and extremely entertaining.

It’s a fantastically made – and gleefully outlandish – giant monster movie, with its premise centering on big monsters threatening to take over Earth, with humanity banding together and responding by making similarly big robots to punch the big monsters in their big faces. It’s wonderfully bombastic, standing as easily the largest-scale movie Guillermo del Toro has directed to date, while also being one of the filmmaker’s best films overall, too.

20 ‘RRR’ (2022)

Director: S. S. Rajamouli

RRR thrills and excites in a somewhat comparable way to the aforementioned Face/Off, but it leans arguably even further into over-the-top territory as far as things like runtime and action sequences are concerned. It runs for an appropriately epic three hours, and takes two historical figures before imagining what would’ve happened if they’d met and battled the British Raj in a revolutionary conflict back in the early 1920s.

It’s a film that starts at what feels like an unmaintainable high, but then RRR miraculously finds ways to continually top itself, proving riotously entertaining all the while. On top of the spectacular action, there’s also true heart to be found in RRR, with a simple story that’s easy to get swept up in. Also, the fact that it has some highly memorable musical numbers doesn’t hurt, either.

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19 ‘Terminator 2: Judgment Day’ (1991)

Director: James Cameron

Though The Terminator could be seen as something close to a blockbuster, it wasn’t made on nearly the same scale as its sequel, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, which is a debatably better film overall, too. Both were made by James Cameron and satisfy in different ways, the 1984 original being grittier and almost like a horror movie, while the 1991 sequel is more explosive, action-packed, and relentless.

If you want spectacle, Terminator 2: Judgment Day still delivers as much now as it would’ve back in the early 1990s, owing to just how good the special effects are and how satisfying the big set pieces remain. Whether it’s James Cameron’s best movie might be debatable, but it’s pretty easy to call it the best of his unequivocal blockbusters to date, seeing as it just does everything right as an action/sci-fi movie.

18 ‘The Avengers’ (2012)

Director: Joss Whedon

Before 2012, there were superhero movies that were better than The Avengers, and also since 2012, there have been superhero movies that were better than The Avengers. But as far as scale and ambition went, this film was unparalleled for its time, bringing together numerous iconic Marvel heroes and getting them to effectively share the screen within a single movie.

It completed the MCU’s first phase in style, and some of those movies that led up to it now look better in hindsight, thanks to how it all ended up. The Avengers changed things going forward, too, with the MCU – and some rivals – trying to chase the high, so to speak, that this film represented. Some Avengers movies topped it critically and commercially, but The Avengers really did feel like it started it all, and is one of the most important blockbusters of the 21st century so far, as a result.

17 ‘Avengers: Infinity War’ (2018)

Directors: Anthony Russo, Joe Russo

Yes, another Avengers movie, but Infinity War was another step up in terms of impact and success for what was – at the time – a seemingly unstoppable cinematic universe. The Avengers served as a finale for the MCU’s first phase, while Infinity War was the beginning of the end, part one of a duology that ended up concluding the first three phases of the MCU; a pair of films that haven’t quite been matched since the beginning of the 2020s.

Avengers: Infinity War brings together significantly more iconic characters than the first Avengers movie, being a massively ambitious and shockingly well-balanced crossover movie in the best of ways. Also, for as crowd-pleasing as much of it was, Infinity War also got surprisingly dark at times, and has one of the boldest/bleakest endings of any blockbuster film ever made.

16 ‘Avengers: Endgame’ (2019)

Directors: Anthony Russo, Joe Russo

After the devastation of Avengers: Infinity War, 2019 saw the release of the more conventionally appealing Avengers: Endgame, which was the second part of the remarkable duology that wrapped up the MCU’s third phase. It ended up being even more critically acclaimed than previous Avengers movies, and ultimately emerged as the highest-grossing film of the 2010s.

So, yes, Avengers: Endgame was another step forward for superhero movies, and judging by scale alone, it’s not something that’s been topped by any single film since 2019. Going by runtime and the sheer number of characters, it’s an unprecedented modern-day epic, and also ended up being one of those rare blockbusters that – while not flawless – excelled across the board while satisfying both die-hard fans and more casual moviegoers alike, thanks to it being something that balanced tearjerking scenes, spectacle, action, and humor.

15 ‘Fast Five’ (2011)

Director: Justin Lin

For about a decade, the Fast and Furious series felt like it was mostly centered on car racing with some crime/thriller elements, while in the past decade, it’s focused on being a bit more James Bond-esque but with more cars. Right in the middle of these two directions for the franchise lies Fast Five, which is debatably the best in the entire series, and an overall excellent action movie.

It takes on the heist genre in a bombastic way, bringing together main and side characters alike from the previous four (sometimes loosely connected) movies and giving them a clear goal to work towards and achieve. Fast Five is unwaveringly direct and at times incredibly blunt, but it’s such an adrenaline rush of a movie that you’re better off not trying to resist it, no matter how dumb you think this long-running series might be.

14 ‘Jurassic Park’ (1993)

Director: Steven Spielberg

The first Steven Spielberg blockbuster worth highlighting for present purposes is Jurassic Park, which is unequivocally the dinosaur movie to which all others are compared. It’s very likely the case that no other movie with dinosaurs front and center in this way will ever be better than it in the future, and indeed, nothing in the movie series it kicked off has ever come close.

With memorable characters taking part in a straightforward yet compelling story about scientific progress being pushed too far, Jurassic Park is engrossing on top of being technically dazzling, beautifully scored (thank you, John Williams), and expertly paced. It’s a film that doesn’t waste a second and delivers every emotional beat it wants to with pinpoint accuracy, showcasing Spielberg at the height of his directorial powers, entirely in control of an impressively enormous motion picture.

13 ‘Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse’ (2023)

Directors: Justin K. Thompson, Kemp Powers, Joaquim Dos Santos

Animated movies can be blockbusters, too, should they feel appropriately grand in scale and prove sufficiently successful at the box office. Running for close to 2.5 hours, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse certainly satisfies in terms of scale, expanding the multiverse-related adventures that commenced in 2018’s Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse significantly while employing some skillful world-building and introducing numerous great new characters.

That increase in scale was met with an even more successful box office haul, making Across the Spider-Verse debatably more worthy of being crowned a blockbuster than the more modest (yet still incredible) Into the Spider-Verse. Both movies work together fantastically well and each set new standards for what animated superhero films could be… but whether a third film, Beyond the Spider-Verse, can prove just as great remains to be seen.

12 ‘Mission: Impossible – Fallout’ (2018)

Director: Christopher McQuarrie

Each Mission: Impossible movie has arguably felt bigger than the last, and it’s contributed to the overall feeling of it being one of those rare film franchises that either gets better – or retains a similar level of quality, at the very least – with every new release. As for singling out which one satisfies the most as a blockbuster, it would probably have to be the sixth: Mission: Impossible – Fallout.

2023’s Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One was also brilliant when assessed by quality, but it was lacking in box office returns compared to Fallout, which kind of disqualifies it from full-on blockbuster status. Still, to stay positive, both are immensely satisfying action movies, containing relentless pacing, plenty of well-timed one-liners and scenes of banter, exotic locations, satisfying fight sequences, and unbelievably great stunts.

11 ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ (2014)

Director: James Gunn

There’s a scrappy underdog charm to Guardians of the Galaxy, with the characters being misfits and the film itself having its work cut out for it, owing to the fact that the titular superhero squad weren’t exactly household names. The film’s quality and positive word-of-mouth post-release helped it exceed expectations commercially, and, as a result, it’s hard to resist calling it one of the best superhero blockbusters ever made.

Perhaps even more surprising in its success than The Avengers was, Guardians of the Galaxy contributed to this feeling that the MCU – at least for a time – could do almost no wrong. This 2014 flick delivered crowd-pleasing action and spectacle alongside a distinctive sense of humor and a willingness to be sentimental in a sometimes admirably vulnerable way… undoubtedly great use of music, too. Tons of disparate ingredients were thrown together shockingly well, resulting in a mass-appeal blockbuster that was pretty much perfect; just what the mid-2010s doctor ordered, really.

10 ‘Gladiator’ (2000)

Director: Ridley Scott

The birth of the blockbuster, as the term is currently understood, arguably wasn’t until the 1970s (with a couple of soon-to-be-mentioned movies largely responsible for birthing the term). Before then, there were epic movies that satisfied a similar craving for spectacle, with some movies – like Gladiator – ultimately standing as both epics (or perhaps throwbacks to epics of old) and modern blockbusters at the same time.

A film about losing everything and stopping at nothing to get revenge (but in a heroic, crowd-pleasing sort of way), Gladiator is big, flashy, and undeniably cinematic in every sense of the word. It’s perhaps Ridley Scott’s biggest movie, and is also one of his very best. Gladiator succeeds as action-packed entertainment as well as solid, compelling, and unapologetically simple drama, too.

9 ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’ (1981)

Director: Steven Spielberg

Another decade, another Steven Spielberg hit, Raiders of the Lost Ark was the first movie in the Indiana Jones series, and feels like the best overall (though it has some competition, to be honest). It is an old-fashioned yet timelessly snappy action/adventure movie, having a plot that boils down to: “Hey, let’s make sure the Nazis don’t get their hands on the Ark of the Covenant, mmkay?”

It was also a film that helped turn Harrison Ford into a legendary leading man, admittedly after he’d proven to be a scene-stealing supporting character in a certain series set a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away. Raiders of the Lost Ark is a textbook example of a modern-day blockbuster, and has countless lessons to teach aspiring writers and filmmakers who might one day wish to make something within the action genre.

8 ‘Mad Max: Fury Road’ (2015)

Director: George Miller

Taking inspiration from action movies of old while doing something that also felt revolutionary and fresh, Mad Max: Fury Road was probably more critically acclaimed than it was financially successful, but it performed well enough either way to be worthy of blockbuster status. It probably deserved to do even better at the box office than it did, though, owing to just how exciting and dynamic it was on a technical front.

Much of Mad Max: Fury Road plays out like one extended and highly elaborate car chase through a post-apocalyptic wasteland, everything feeling as bombastic and maximal as possible. It is a film that very much refuses to play anything safe, slowing down very rarely while delivering enough action and genuine wow moments in just two hours to fill half a dozen or more ordinary blockbusters.

7 ‘Spider-Man 2’ (2004)

Director: Sam Raimi

After a solid first movie in 2002, Spider-Man 2 exceeded expectations and made this take on the titular superhero even more of a legend; as far as live-action Spider-Men go, Tobey Maguire might well remain untouchable. 2002’s Spider-Man was a great early superhero blockbuster for the 21st century, and 2004’s Spider-Man 2 did just about everything it did better, and executed a few new things on top of it for good measure.

The heightened world was expanded, the humor was funnier, the special effects were noticeably better, Peter Parker’s struggles were even more relatable, and, though the Green Goblin was missed, Doc Ock was a similarly excellent central villain (not to mention a tragic one). Spider-Man 2 is just pretty much perfect as far as big-budget superhero movies go, no matter how you want to judge it.

6 ‘The Empire Strikes Back’ (1980)

Director: Irvin Kershner

Though The Empire Strikes Back’s predecessor might be considered a more important blockbuster in the overall scheme of things (and cinema history), it’s this 1980 film that’s arguably the best of what the Star Wars series has to offer. It hits the ground running and never lets up, all the while doing what all good sequels should do by finding new things for old characters to do and building the world of the original film in interesting ways.

The Empire Strikes Back was also important for showing that the previous Star Wars movie was no fluke, and that as a series, Star Wars had the potential to have some serious legs. People have been divided on other entries in the franchise, to say the least, but The Empire Strikes Back is universally beloved, and an overall top-tier example of blockbuster filmmaking.